Here Without You
by Padfoot Lives
Summary: Months after the Veil, Hermione begins to change and Harry grows worried. Little does he know what secret he's about to discover . . .


  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its connections do not belong to me! The song "Here Without You" belongs to Three Doors Down, so I can't claim that either.   
  
Note: A standalone fic expanded from an idea I had.   
  
Summary: He was worried about her - one of the three people he cared about most in the world - but little did Harry know what secret he was about to discover . . .   
  
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Here Without You   
  
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Harry Potter twirled his quill between his fingers as he tried to concentrate on what Professor Binns was saying. The lecture was actually partially interesting, but Harry's mind was elsewhere and halfway through his sixth year, it was perhaps a good time to start focusing on NEWTs, yet he simply couldn't.

It was partly to do with Sirius's death, something that had torn Harry apart and still caused a well of grief inside him when he thought about it and about Sirius, but lately, someone else had been occupying his thoughts.

The truth was, he was worried about Hermione. She had always been there for him, more so since Sirius . . . and he loved her like a sister. So when she had begun to change lately, grown more withdrawn and saddened, with a weary, jaded look of pain in her eyes every time he managed to bore deep enough into them, it was only understandable that he and Ron had gotten concerned.

Had something happened at home? If not, what was wrong?

Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she was staring out of the window with that same look in her eyes, that glassy, faraway look of someone who might as well have been dead for all they were aware of the world around them.

And Harry decided it was time to find out the source of her grief.

That night, he recruited Ron to draw Hermione out of the common-room and take her for a _long_ walk around the grounds (he knew Hermione would never refuse a desperate appeal to 'talk'), probably to visit Hagrid as well. Once he was certain she was gone, and feeling a twinge of guilt about what he was doing, he got Ginny to take him up to Hermione's room (it seemed that boys could get past those treacherous sliding stars only if they had a girl escorting them), which was empty.

He found her bed and dresser quickly, seeing as they were the neatest there. Luckily, he didn't have to snoop. Lying open, half-covered by the quilts, was a notebook that was unmistakably her diary, lying beside a piece of rolled-up parchment.

Harry didn't want to read her diary - that would be a breach of trust that he wasn't willing to commit - yet the last line that Hermione had writted caught his eye as he picked up the parchment:

_"He said once that life was overrated. Would he say that now, I wonder? But he's right. If I didn't care enough about Harry and Ron to stay here with them until Voldemort is gone, I'd have learned the self-casting Avada Kadavra curse a long time ago."_

Something seemed to rip inside Harry's heart and he felt his breath catch in his throat. The bitterness, the raw pain, the sheer _loss_ in Hermione's words . . . where had such agony come from? What had happened to her? And who was the 'he'?

Slowly, his heart in his throat, Harry unrolled the parchment and found himself reading a letter that turned his mind - and soul - upside-down.

_" - Dear 'Mione,  
  
A hundred days have made me older  
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face.  
A thousand lights have made me colder  
And I don't think I can look at this the same.  
All the miles that separate  
Disappear now when I'm dreamin' of your face.  
  
I'm here without you baby  
But you're still on my lonely mind.  
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time.  
I'm here without you baby  
But you're still with me in my dreams  
And tonight, it's only you and me.  
  
// Merlin's beard, 'Mione, I miss you so much its like a constant ache inside me, and its crazy because it's only been a few months, but I still can't stop thinking about that night we had alone, just you and me . . . //   
  
The miles just keep rollin'  
As the people leave their way to say hello  
I've heard this life is overrated  
But I hope that this gets better as we go.  
  
I'm here without you baby  
But you're still on my lonely mind.  
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time.  
I'm here without you baby  
But you're still with me in my dreams  
And tonight, girl, it's only you and me.  
  
// I usually know what I'm doing, and you know that as well as anyone. Yet with you, I'm at square one. I don't think I could ever describe how I feel . . . all the guilt at what I'm doing - a thirty-three-year-old man and a fifteen-year-old girl! - all the pent-up passion and longing, the overwhelming needs to hold you and kiss you, the need to protect you, to keep you safe, to make you smile that smile that lights up your eyes and makes them sparkle . . . and I can't even begin to explain why I feel so elated, so human every time you tell me how much you love me. I need you here with me now, I just need you. //   
  
Everything I know, and anywhere I go,  
It gets hard but I won't take away my love.  
And when the last one falls, when its all said and done.  
It gets hard but it won't take away my love.  
  
I'm here without you baby  
But you're still on my lonely mind  
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time  
I'm here without you baby   
But you're still with me in my dreams  
And tonight, girl, it's only you and me . . . _

// I hope Harry can forgive us one day when we finally tell him, but I understand why you don't want to tell him now, not when Voldemort is growing stronger and he has enough to worry about. I just hope you take care of yourself as much as you take care of him.

I guess what I'm trying to say in this letter is that I love you, 'Mione, more than you could ever know. I'd do anything for you, and I know it's hard right now for us to be apart, but some day, close into the future, maybe we'll be together again . . . and this time - forever. 

Always,  
Sirius 

The letter fell from Harry's trembling fingers, and it was only as he sank slowly onto Hermione's bed that he realized there were burning tears in his eyes.

He should be angry, he knew, angry that his godfather had fallen in love with one of his best friends - a teenage girl, at that - and that, on top of it all, they hadn't told him. Yet no part of Harry could feel that anger that he had become so used to as of late. His heart held only sorrow, and sympathy.

Sirius's letter held more emotion and love than Harry had ever thought inked words could contain. And Harry couldn't be angry at two people he loved so much, especially when he remembered that one of them had lost her lover, forever.

_Oh, Mione . . ._

Harry's eyes blurred over as the tears threatened to overcome him. The grief, the mere thought of Hermione's raw anguish and pain and Sirius's protective love and longing broke his heart, because they didn't deserve what had happened to their love.

And him? Harry felt a swell of guilt. He had been wallowing in his own anger and misery for the past few months, forgetting that other people had cared about his godfather too, never realizing the more terrible, more powerful grief Hermione had been feeling all this time . . . and she had never shown it. She had stuck by him with composure, and it was only recently, when he had gotten back on track, that she had allowed herself to feel again.

He had found the reason for Hermione's pain, but it was worse than he could have imagined because he and Ron were even more helpless than they had been before.

Harry stood up, brushing away the tears angrily. He wasn't going to sit around, disappointing Sirius by letting Hermione's grief waste her away. There was no way in all the hells of the world that he was going to let her learn the self-casting _Avada Kadavra_ curse.

And maybe, he thought with a twinge of sadness and hope, they would be able to find the secret of the Veil and bring Sirius back. Maybe.

Someday.

  
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FINIS.   
  
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A/N: Just an idea, like I said. I have no plans for a sequel for this one, although I (of course) want Sirius back, and JK Rowling darn well better bring him back! Please, please review . . .   



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